Brenda Elwell's guide, "The Single Parent Travel Handbook,"
can be ordered on her Web
site. She also publishes a
free monthly online newsletter of tips, including transportation, accomodation
and tour bargains specifically geared for single parents.
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RelationTrips
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Personal, Practical Advice for Every Traveler
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Relieving
the burdens of single parent travel is possible: Enlist your children to
take responsibility, argues Brenda Elwell.
III. Responsibilites of Each Family
Member on Trips
It is important to assign tasks to each member of the family, no matter
how young, and to increase those responsibilities so that they are age-appropriate
each year thereafter. If not, the burden will always fall on the single
parent, leaving the parent exhausted and stressed and having to worry about
every little travel detail. At first it will take time to teach and double-check
the small child, but after one or two trips, the benefits will pay off handsomely.
Let's start with some ideas for the younger children, ages three to nine:
Locate the safety exits.
From the time my son was four years old I made him responsible for locating
exit doors on planes and in hotels and theatres. I explained the importance
of his job and he took it to heart. Every time we checked into a hotel,
he would always remember to look down the hallway and count the number of
doors to the fire exit. Although we have never experienced a hotel fire,
it was nice to know that I had one less thing to worry about when checking
in. Kids, less encumbered with responsibilities, are more likely to
focus on a single task.
Learn the name of the hotel
My first trip traveling as a single adult with my two kids was to the Knoxville
World's Fair. My kids were then four and eleven years old. Fearful
of separation in a large, crowded area, I made sure both my children knew
the name of our hotel and had them repeat it back to me every so often. We
witnessed one six-year-old child get lost, a memorable object lesson for my
young son. Thereafter, whenever we traveled, without being prompted, my son
memorized the hotel name as soon as we checked in. If you are traveling in
a foreign country, have your child carry with him the cover from a set of
matches. (Don't give your child the matches; that's inviting disaster).
Big kids benefit from this object lesson too. While I was
working for a major European student tour company, our headquarters in Philadelphia
received a phone call from the Pan American Airways office in downtown Rome.
It seemed a high school student from one of our groups to Italy had wandered
off by himself on a free afternoon, gotten lost in the city, and didn't
know the name of his hotel. He did remember that he had flown on Pan
American so he walked into their office and explained his problem. After
checking his flight information, the airline agent was able to verify his
group information and called our office in the U. S. to get the name of
his hotel. Although the student rated a poor grade in the memory department,
he certainly deserved an "A" for ingenuity.
Counting luggage
Little ones can be responsible for counting luggage every time you make
a move - arrival at your destination via airplane, checking out of the hotel,
leaving a train or bus. The first couple of years my little son bordered
on becoming "Mr. Annoying," as his sister and I had to stop cold in
our tracks while he did a formal luggage count (usually a total of three bags
and two small backpacks). But it made him and his older sister acutely aware
of the importance of not leaving things behind.
Final room or compartment search
When you feel your child is ready, let him or her be responsible for the
final room search before you check out of the hotel or leave the train.
Kids are good at this. Once they are shown how to properly search
a room for items that are left behind (under beds, in drawers and closets,
behind the shower curtain) you can count on them to do a suitable search and
relieve you of that burden. Of course, until they are tall enough, you
will have to check the shelves in the closet!
As the years went by and my son reached his pre-teens and later his teens,
he automatically took on more responsibility for the luggage and I was happy
to be relieved of this burden as well. When we did curbside check-in
at airports, he would stay outside with the luggage until the porter actually
picked it up and took it inside, so I didn't have to worry about curbside
theft. When we traveled on buses throughout third world countries
he would watch the porters load the luggage on top or inside, making certain
the luggage was tied and secured properly. At times he even got up on
top of the bus and helped the young men, making friends along the way.
I am sure his efforts saved us from some lost or damaged luggage.
Ideas for children ages ten and older:
Doing the research
We talked about how kids can ask their teachers for help in finding books
on topics pertaining to your forthcoming trip. Although you as the parent
will probably want to do the research on airfares, I highly recommend assigning
your child the task of searching the Web for destination information.
Unless you work for a dot-com, your child will probably do a better job than
you at the grunt work - finding the sites that provide the information you
need.
Map reading
Kids as young as nine or ten can learn to read city tourist maps. They
usually have lots of pictures and tourist sites. Let them navigate
the way around the city on foot. Let them make a mistake or two and head
down the wrong street and then learn how to find and correct their mistake.
With a little help and lots of praise from you, they will become accomplished
tourist map-readers by the age of eleven or twelve. That way you can
window-shop or keep an eye on a younger child, while your older child pores
over the map. As the child approaches his or her teens, they can graduate
to road maps.
Navigator
Younger children, ten to twelve, are great Junior Navigators, and can help
you read road signs as you navigate your way in and out of a city, or help
you find the poorly marked exit. Teen-agers can be your Senior Navigator,
and be responsible for plotting the route of each day's journey.
The uniqueness of single parent travel:
You often read how single parenthood is a disadvantage for the kids. When
it comes to travel, I think there are many advantages for the single parent
child. In a double parent family situation it is not uncommon for
a teen-ager to regress as both parents take control of the trip and assume
most, if not all, of the responsibilities. Just the opposite happens
in a traveling single parent family. The single parent needs to rely
on the child to perform more duties and responsibilities than would be common
for a child of a double parent family. This makes the child feel more
mature and they are more likely to learn these travel or life skills at an
earlier age. If this is such a good idea, why doesn't every parent do
it, even double parent families? Because it takes training and patience and
a willingness on the part of the parent to give up some control. Single parents
are more likely to succeed at this task because they have to. They are forced
to rely on their kids for help.
You often see TV commercials featuring Mommy and Daddy in the front seat
of the van, while their young son and daughter are kept busy in the back
seat with TV or headphones. Often the teen-ager is portrayed as reclusive
and removed from general conversation. In a single parent travel situation
the teen-ager would be in the front seat, reading the road signs and playing
the role of Chief Navigator. No doubt there will be some arguments between
teen-ager and parent, but at least the teen-ager will be developing map skills
along the way and will feel he or she had an active part in making the trip
successful.
Things the single parent must remember:
Be sure to laud the child when they have done well.
"That was difficult finding our way out of the city with all that traffic.
You were a big help reading the signs so quickly." By reinforcing the positive
behavior, hopefully you will get less of the negative.
Keep in mind the delicate balance between increased responsibilities
and increased privileges.
Even if a child is responsible for a few more things on a trip than at
home, certain rules, such as curfews, and reporting your whereabouts, still
apply. This needs to be discussed in advance of the trip.
Let go and trust
By the time my daughter reached her teens she was my Chief Navigator on
our trips out West. For years I tortured that poor girl, always questioning
her judgement on a certain route or a certain turn. Invariably I would
say, "Are you sure?" Finally one day she handed me the maps and said, "Mom,
if you don't trust my judgement, then you do it!" After that I tried
to control my compulsive behavior, although once in a while I let slip the
phrase "¿Eres segura?" as we traveled through Central America. I figured
foreign languages don't count.
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